From: cas111jd@...
Message: 8123
Date: 2001-07-27
--- In cybalist@..., "Rex H. McTyeire" <rexbo@...> wrote:
> O-: cas111jd responds:
> O-: Cilicia was already a vassal state.
>
> Wasn't trying to sell a candidate, just offer options..we don't
know. A
> rebelling vassal is one of a long list of things that caused empire
> compilers trouble.
>
A puny state like Cilicia wouldn't dare rebel against Assyria -what
with watching Carchemish and the other neo-Hittite states being
destroyed, and the Urartians also soundly repulsed after daring to
take over this area. They would need some strong backers before
breaking their oath to the Assyrians. I doubt that a nomad army would
tempt them. It seems that they would call in their overlord to save
them. As a dutiful overlord, the Assyrian king responded (part of the
oath, you know).
> O-: ..Assyria for aid. It seems unlikely that a small state like
Cilicia
> O-: could manage to defeat the Assyrian grande armee, even in
> O-: ambush.
>
> Document the request for aid? Sargon II was active against
Phrygians as
> well. We don't know the degree of defeat..just the indicator that
Sargon
> was killed. You can't keep putting super refugees everywhere it is
> convenient to sell your point. The counter point remains: if they
were
> that tactically sound..they would not be refugees. :-) The
location of
> his demise was south and not often contested.
>
You're going to make me dig up my notes. :-)
Again, just because they could be defeated by the Scythians doesn't
mean they couldn't outmatch the Urartians and Phrygians. Again, Jalal
al Din fled from the Mongols, causing much havoc in Persia. He took
the best of the surviving cavalry he had and ran from Genghis Khan,
but in turn killed a lot of people in the Near East that happened to
be in his path of flight.
> O-: I believe the Cimmerians were mounted
> O-: warriors, the remnants that had survived and chosen to flee
> O-: after an initial Scythian defeat on the steppes.
>
> They were very horsey..no contest.
>
> O-: Why should we not suspect that Cimmerian pastoralists lingered
in
> central
> O-: Anatolia, with their mobile tool kits too scanty to recognize
today?
> They didn't
> O-: last very long, so why should we claim that without
archaeological
> O-: evidence, we must conclude that they did not exist?
>
> Nobody is arguing they didn't exist: I agree an element wound up in
> Central Anatolia, I just don't agree that every event and reverse of
> History in all of wide Anatolia for a century and a half was
> attributable to one group or one people that history then looses.
>
> O-: Their presence was ephemeral.
>
> I agree; too much so to accomplish what you suggest for the period
> covered.
>
> O-: After the Lydians defeated them, they probably surrendered
> O-: without a fight to the Medes and their leaders assimilated
into the
> O-: Pax Medea/ Persae.
>
> You are combining too much territory, time, and events here to even
be
> realistic. Have you ever traveled from Lydia to Medea? By your
scenario
> it would have to be Crimea to Caucasus to Urartu..to
Phrygia..Sardis,
> Magnesia, Ephesus on into Lydia..back to Phrygia then Media..and
somehow
> south to kill Sargon II as well as settled in Cappadochia; all over
a
> century or so. (That's not very ephemeral.)
>
I think the time frame is fine: they rode into the Transcaucasus from
(somewhere) to the north at the end of the eighth century BC. I say
their homeland could not have been the Crimea or Ukraine because they
would have been going against the Scythian advance, which came across
the Volga from ... some say they were Altaic, making their origin in
perhaps Mongolia. Anyway, the Cimmerian homeland could have been the
north Caucasus, which could make them Thracian. Why did some of them
head south instead of west? I believe they had heard of the Urartian
defeat and could have been ready for easy plunder. Heck, the
Scythians may have attack the Cimmerians, having heard themselves
that the flower of the Cimmerian cavalry was away in the
Transcaucasus.
In any event, after destroying Urartu, they fled into Anatolia, as
the Scyths were on their rears again. The Anatolian states appealed
to Assyria, whose king was killed in battle. Yes, we don't know the
circumstances. The Assyrians didn't have much to say about it,
understandably. I think it's a safe bet that they Assyrians took a
major reverse, though. Unless the Assyrian king for some odd reason
was in his vanguard and got ambushed and killed before the main army
showed up - unlikely, but who knows?
Anyway, the Phrygian kingdom was overthrown, never to be important
again in history. The Cimmerians adapted their steppe culture to the
plains of central Anatolia, but within a few generations were largely
indistinguishable from the fearsome mounted warriors as their sons
were brought up by local women and they as a people became
aculturated to Anatolia.
As far as attacking Magnesia and Ephesus and anywhere else in
Anatolia: they could have done so over many years. The cities weren't
going anywhere. What was the hurry? As long as they could exact
tribute (as the Greek cities on the north Pontic coast, for instance,
did later to the historic Scythians), they did not have to attack.
> There are three arch schools (in the east) on the Cimmerians, I will
> summarize with some bias obvious :-):
>
> The Terronozkin: To the North of the Black Sea existed a single
> definable ethnic group with clear borders presenting a unitary
> recognizable arch culture which ceased evolution and abruptly ended
with
> Scythian incursion to the Dniester; unconditionally equated by
groups of
> archaeological finds with the populations mentioned by Herodotus.
> (Supported also by many others in print as late as 1994)
>
> The Jessen: (Older) ca. 1953, : The cultures (with regional or
site
> names applied) were contemporary and semi-homogenous over a wider
time
> period and area without break (extending further east, past the
Volga.)
> containing more than two identifiable horse nomad subcultures
> intermingled and no one extinguishing the other. This emerged from
the
> following observation: "Both the Scythians and the Cimmerians known
from
> Assyrian sources have been identified with the bearers of the
archaic
> Scythian culture." (quote by Dorin Sarbu, Romanian Archaeological
> Professional Association )
>
> The Leskov: ( a mediated Jessen; adopted by the former Soviet
> Archaeological School) This yielded a simplified lumping of elements
> based on horses and horse technology alone into a single state like
map
> entry called Scythia from prehistory forward to Scythian dispersal,
from
> west of the Danube mouth to well beyond the Volga, IE there was no
> Cimmeria and Thrace was tiny. (This image has apparently influenced
> your view, except you want to make Cimmeria the map entity name
> extending far to the east; and charge Scythians with late entry
north
> of the Caucasus, rather than just to the Dniester.)
>
Actually, I've read some of this long ago. Archaeology helps a lot,
but it may also lead one astray. It's fun, but it makes writing
history hazardous. The Scythians conquered Ukraine, ruling over a
polyglot population with a homogenous steppe culture with local sub-
cultures. Thracians predominated in the west (Herodotus' Scythian
Farmers included, I suspect), with the Getae apparently remaining
largely independent during fluctuating Scythian fortunes.
> Neither is totally accurate. The chronology of change is in
doubt, but
> no one to my knowledge has tried to pin down Scythian incursion to
the
> Dniester without a (ca.) in front of an entire century..the
eighth. By
> the seventh; archaeology shows the change.
The Medes captured Nineveh in 612 BC, the last Assyrians were
defeated at Carchemish in 605 BC. After this the Scythians withdrew
from NW Iran.
I'd have to check my notes, but I seem to recall the Lydian king
(Attalus?) defeating the Cimmerians about ... 647 BC. This is barely
50 years after Sargon was killed. For the king of that facile country
Lydia to defeat the Cimmerians ... shows you how much the Cimmerians
had declined! What remnants there were that still called
themselves "Cimmerians" in central Anatolia were about as powerful as
the late Galatians (that is to say, NOT!). Like the Ostrogoths after
their final defeat in Italy, they just disappeared.
There are common horse
> fitting elements across the breadth of the area disputed (Danube
mouth
> to Volga) earlier than the eighth (a hot technology traveled
well)..as
> well as some odd regional differences and river valley leapfrogging
and
> other irregularities. There are also cultural differences evident
in
> burial technology, grave goods, weapons, and pottery that tend to
show a
> difference actually by river basin eastward (Danube mouth, Dniester,
> Dnieper, Bug, Don and Volga) ..but support a N. Pontic center of a
> culture that had no clear borders and extended influence omni
> directionally. There are also uniquely Cimmerian elements (one
example:
> a specific bone tipped arrow technology widely different from the
> Scythian) and there was an intrusion (we will call it Scythian).
Also
> evident is that these so called Cimmerian cultural elements were not
> extinguished with the Scythian incursion when new elements were
> introduced..but continued amidst the new or faded slowly. The latter
> reinforcing the contention that nomadic peoples moving from this
center
> would have been under Scythian domination, but came from Cimmeria
and
> included some autochthonous Cimmerians..and probably were quite
> logically called "Cimmerian" on more than one occasion. The area
we are
> talking about is shown below, dots/boxes representing arch
sites/finds
> used in defining Cimmeria and/ or the chronology of change (In
short; I
> give you Cimmeria):
>
>
>
>
>
> My conclusion: Cimmerians impacting in the West of Anatolia were
> refugees from Scythian hegemony westward to the Dniester, crossing
into
> Anatolia from Thrace. References to either Scythians or Cimmerians,
> however, in the east of Anatolia (By Assyrians or others) after this
> point were not the same force(s) but force(s) under Scythian
> leadership, perhaps multiple instances of intrusion through the
Caucasus
> from Cimmeria < after > the Scythian intrusion to the Dniester and
> domination of all locals remaining in the N. Pontic area. (That
> Scythian westward movement originating from a previously established
> more easterly Steppe position than depicted by dots/boxes
> above)(Followed by intrusion into the east of Anatolia precisely
from
> the depicted area.)
>
> Cu Stima;
> Rex H. McTyeire
> Bucharest, Romania
Plausible, thanks. I think the numbers of mountain ranges, rivers,
and of course the Dardanelles makes this route very difficult, though
not impossible. Archaeology shows Cimmerian and/or Scythian influence
into central Europe at this time. While the Galatians also came over
the Dardanelles, they were aided by a local king (of Bithynia?), who
provided the boats. They also had a geo-political motive: allies
against the Seleucids. Conversely, riding over the Armenian
tablelands into central Anatolia was always relatively easy and done
many times.
PS: I don't think you are going to get very far with your Balkans
route theory with the Herodotus purists whom I couldn't budge from
their 'west end of the Caucasus route' beliefs :-)